but, contrary to popular belief, new orleans is a city like any other city. people live here, work here, have normal lives, go grocery shopping, pay bills, have barbecues, in fact, many of us go entire weeks without imbibing a single alcoholic beverage.

contrary to popular belief, we do not party all the time. in fact, most of us avoid the french quarter at all costs. this is common sense, as you can pay eight dollars for a drink in the quarter that you'd pay three or four dollars for anywhere else.

those people you see pissing on bourbon street, vomiting in the gutters, bedecked with beads at any time other than mardi gras--those are not locals. we laugh at those people, make fun of those people, get annoyed by those people.

new orleans is a cool place to live, but not because you can walk around outside with a drink or buy liquor past eleven or because the bars never really close until everybody leaves. it is a cool place to live because we allow you to do these things, but we had hoped you would exercise a little fucking discretion.

all of the things you can do here you can do in europe, in places like paris and amsterdam and berlin, but for some reason the exotic and liberated demeanor of new orleans has been perverted into an orgiastic excuse for people to come here and act like a bunch of fucking assholes. you wont see beaded frat boys wearing university of texas regalia pissing on the eiffel tower--why do they do it on jackson square or the french market?

ozzy osbourne once got arrested for taking a leak on the alamo, which is apparently much more historically relevant than new orleans, which is older and doesn't mark a war that we fucking lost.

i'm not trying to preach here, and yes, you come to new orleans to have a good time, and we encourage that. but seriously, have some goddam manners.